Review: Feenberg, Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason

Feenberg’s Technosystem offers an engaging, lucid and important critique of technical rationality, the defining feature of modernity. With an approach labeled Critical Constructivism, he develops tools for countering the dominating force of our rational culture by combining insights from Critical Theory and Science and Technology Studies. This review argues that the articulation of the problem he envisages is more persuasive than the proffered solutions. Technosystem is nevertheless an urgent and timely contribution presenting progressive and practical ideas.